Well, I''m 13, and I''ve been looking in to stuff like this (ok, so i happened to run into a magazine with some gaming colleges) Well anyhow here are a few you might want to check out.

Digipen(www.digipen.edu)
Full Sail (www.fullsail.com)
Both of those are pretty much devoted to game making, however there are others that the whole school doesnt focus on game making, just a few classes, such as:
Stanford, Eastern Business computer institute, California at irvine, Carnegie Mellon. Just to name a few. Really, Digipen seems to really focus on it a lot, however if you go to a gaming college there''s probably gonna be a lot of just punks and kids who think it''ll be fun. I really don''t think I would like to be around the main crowd at digipen or full sail, because i kinda have the notion that most people that go there are a bunch of punk kids who just like to drink beer and play games( i hope i dont start a flame with that), however i could be wrong. Well i hope that helped.

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So what if I''m 13, I can still code better than like 95% of Americans, and probably 99.9% of the people in the world. Whoa, I feel proud.

i don''t believe fullsail is devoted to game making, my cousin is enrolling there next year for sound engineering (i.e. music industry, not games)... although this is second-hand knowledge, you should probably check out their websites at least.
now, not to burst your bubble, but it isn''t easy to get into the game industry (or so i''ve heard repeatedly)... you might want to go through a "normal" computer science and get a degree, so you can get a job when you graduate.
just my opinion though

--- krez (krezisback@aol.com)

The best route seems to be to get a normal Computer Science degree with emphasis on math and physic. Then in your spare time, continue game and demo developement. By the time you graduate, you will have a strong background plus a couple of demos to show around to developement houses. A lot of game companies won''t reject you if you don''t have a degree, but it goes a long way to getting you in the door if you do, because it shows oyu can stick with something for the long haul.

---
Make it work.
Make it fast.

"I’m happy to share what I can, because
I’m in it for the love of programming. The Ferraris are just gravy, honest!" --John Carmack: Forward to Graphics Programming Black Book

IRT Brainchild:

Contrary to what you may believe, and in which case your beliefs are false (or at least grossly exagerated), most of the people at Digipen are not a "bunch of punk kids who just like to drink beer and play games". On the contrary, most of the people are honest hardworking students. Sure, you'll get a few people that drink but that's normal anywhere. And, uh, let's see... about the play games part... if you don't like to play games, then there's no point in making games. That is, if you don't enjoy what you are doing, why do it?

Also, before I forget, most of the people that think it will "just be fun" drop out after the 1st semester or sometimes the end of the 2nd semester because it is HARD work. Most of the people that go there because they really want to do it also drop out (just later) because it is REALLY HARD WORK.

So, in conclusion, the school that I go to, Digipen, is full of great people that want to learn, not waste $50000 (or $25000 for the AS degree).

Anyway, have fun coding, I gotta get back to my project.

I'm learning, just like the best of us...


[edited by - Soulkeeper on July 17, 2002 2:10:10 PM]

I graduated from FailSail''s Game Design/Programming Degree and I reccomend against it. Wish I went to Digipen.

Go to Carnegie Mellon or Chapel Hill in North Carolina. They are AWESOME programming schools, I HIGHLY reccomend. Stanford is good too. As for scholarships, not any out there I''m afraid to say. Checkout IGDA.com though, they support the beginning developer (somewhat, they''re kind of corrupt it seems).

Soulkeeper: I never heard those things about Digipen guys, but sadly they''re true about Full Sail guys (god, I can''t count how many times I''d go to lab and one of the guys next to me would reek of alchohal). Anyhow I''ve graduated with an A average and am about to go to a real college, no game job in sight for me (well maybe, but I like to not get my hopes up).

"Love all, trust a few. Do wrong to none." - Shakespeare

Dirge - Aurelio Reis
www.CodeFortress.com
Current Causes:
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Holy fucking crap!! Are you kidding me!?!? US $50000!!! holy shit!! you must be one rich cunt! uni''s over here for like CS degree only cost like max NZ $4000 a year, which all up would only be like US $8000

CEO Platoon Studios

Soul keeper, lol, my bad. Thnx for clearing up my misconception. I don''t mind people drinkin, or playin games, i just thought that most of the people who went there were just all about that, however u have a good point about them dropping out. You''ve converted my thoughts, thank u soul keeper (=

quote:Original post by elis-cool
Holy fucking crap!! Are you kidding me!?!? US $50000!!! holy shit!! you must be one rich cunt! uni''s over here for like CS degree only cost like max NZ $4000 a year, which all up would only be like US $8000

CEO Platoon Studios

Now that''s not very nice. I''m sure the $50000 figure was referring to the entire 4 year program, not per year. And seeing as it is a tech school, the tuition would normally be a bit higher than a state school (which usually have tuitions around the price that you are talking about).